The Portable Nietzsche (77 page)

A right is a privilege. A man's state of being is his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges of the
mediocre
. As one climbs
higher
, life becomes ever harder; the coldness increases, responsibility increases.

A high culture is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its first presupposition is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, trade, agriculture,
science
, the greatest part of art, the whole quintessence of
professional
activity, to sum it up, is compatible only with a mediocre amount of ability and ambition; that sort of thing would be out of place among exceptions; the instinct here required would contradict both aristocratism and anarchism. To be a public utility, a wheel, a function, for that one must be destined by nature: it is
not
society, it is the only kind of
happiness
of which the great majority are capable that makes intelligent machines of them. For the mediocre, to be mediocre is their happiness; mastery of one thing, specialization—a natural instinct.

It would be completely unworthy of a more profound spirit to consider mediocrity as such an objection. In fact, it is the very
first
necessity if there are to be exceptions: a high culture depends on it. When the exceptional human being treats the mediocre more tenderly than himself and his peers, this is not mere politeness of the heart—it is simply his
duty.

Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The socialist rabble, the chandala apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker's sense of satisfaction with his small existence—who make him envious, who teach him revenge. The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of “equal” rights.

What is
bad?
But I have said this already: all that is born of weakness, of envy, of
revenge
. The anarchist and the Christian have the same origin.

 

58

Indeed, it makes a difference to what end one lies: whether one preserves or
destroys.
One may posit a perfect equation between
Christian
and
anarchist:
their aim, their instinct, are directed only toward destruction. The proof of this proposition can easily be read in history: it is written there in awful clarity. If we have just become acquainted with a religious legislation whose aim it was to “eternalize” the highest condition of life's
prospering
, a great organization of society—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to precisely such an organization
because life prospered in it
. There the gains of reason, after a long period of experiments and uncertainty, were to be invested for the greatest longterm advantage and the harvest to be brought home as great, as ample, as complete as possible; here, conversely, the harvest was
poisoned
overnight. That which stood there
aere perennius,
the
imperium Romanum,
the most magnificent form of organization under difficult circumstances which has yet been achieved, in comparison with which all before and all afterward are mere botch, patchwork, and dilettantism—these holy anarchists made it a matter of “piety” for themselves to destroy “the world,”
that is
, the
imperium Romanum,
until not one stone remained on the other, until even Teutons and other louts could become masters over it.

The Christian and the anarchist: both decadents, both incapable of having any effect other than disintegrating, poisoning, withering, bloodsucking; both the instinct of mortal hatred against everything that stands, that stands in greatness, that has duration, that promises life a future. Christianity was the vampire of the
imperium Romanum:
overnight it undid the tremendous deed of the Romans—who had won the ground for a great culture
that would have time.

Is it not understood yet? The
imperium Romanum
which we know, which the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know better and better, this most admirable work of art in the grand style was a beginning; its construction was designed to prove itself through thousands of years: until today nobody has built again like this, nobody has even dreamed of building in such proportions
sub specie aeterni
. This organization was firm enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of persons may not have anything to do with such matters —
first
principle of all grand architecture. But it was not firm enough against the
most corrupt
kind of corruption, against the
Christians.

This stealthy vermin which sneaked up to every single one in the night, in fog and ambiguity, and sucked out of each single one the seriousness for
true
things and any instinct for
realities
—this cowardly, effeminate, and saccharine pack alienated “souls” step by step from that tremendous structure—those valuable, those virile, noble natures who found their own cause, their own seriousness, their own pride in the cause of Rome. The sneakiness of prigs, the conventicle secrecy, gloomy concepts like hell, like sacrifice of the guiltless, like
unio mystica
in drinking blood; above all, the slowly fanned fire of revenge, of chandala revenge—all that is what became master over Rome, the same kind of religion against which, in its pre-existent form, Epicurus already had waged war. One should read Lucretius to comprehend
what
Epicurus fought:
not
paganism but “Christianity,” by which I mean the corruption of souls by the concepts of guilt, punishment, and immortality. He fought the
subterranean
cults which were exactly like a latent form of Christianity: to deny immortality was then nothing less than a real
salvation.

And Epicurus would have won; every respectable spirit in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean. Then Paul appeared—Paul, the chandala hatred against Rome, against “the world,” become flesh, become genius, the Jew, the
eternal
Wandering Jew par excellence. What he guessed was how one could use the little sectarian Christian movement apart from Judaism to kindle a “world fire”; how with the symbol of “God on the cross” one could unite all who lay at the bottom, all who were secretly rebellious, the whole inheritance of anarchistic agitation in the Empire, into a tremendous power. “Salvation is of the Jews.” Christianity as a formula with which to outbid the subterranean cults of all kinds, those of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras, for example—
and
to unite them: in this insight lies the genius of Paul. His instinct was so sure in this that he took the ideas with which these chandala religions fascinated, and, with ruthless violence, he put them into the mouth of the ‟Savior” whom he had invented, and not only into his mouth—he
made
something out of him that a priest of Mithras too could understand.

This was his moment at Damascus: he comprehended that he
needed
the belief in immortality to deprive “the world” of value, that the concept of “hell” would become master even over Rome—that with the ‟beyond” one
kills life.
Nihilism and Christianism: that rhymes, that does not only rhyme.

 

59

The whole labor of the ancient world
in vain:
I have no word to express my feelings about something so tremendous. And considering that its labor was a preliminary labor, that only the foundation for the labors of thousands of years had just then been laid with granite self-confidence—the whole
meaning
of the ancient world in vain! Wherefore Greeks? Wherefore Romans?

All the presuppositions for a scholarly culture, all scientific
methods,
were already there; the great, the incomparable art of reading well had already been established—that presupposition for the tradition of culture, for the unity of science; natural science, allied with mathematics and mechanics, was well along on the best way—the
sense for facts
, the last and most valuable of all the senses, had its schools and its tradition of centuries. Is this understood? Everything
essential
had been found, so that the work could be begun: the methods, one must say it ten times,
are
what is essential, also what is most difficult, also what is for the longest time opposed by habits and laziness. What we today have again conquered with immeasurable self-mastery —for each of us still has the bad instincts, the Christian ones, in his system—the free eye before reality, the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest matters, the whole
integrity
in knowledge—that had already been there once before! More than two thousand years ago!
And,
in addition, the good, the delicate sense of tact and taste.
Not
as brain drill!
Not
as “German” education with loutish manners! But as body, as gesture, as instinct—as reality, in short.
All in vain!
Overnight nothing but a memory!

Greeks! Romans! The nobility of instinct, the taste, the methodical research, the genius of organization and administration, the faith in, the
will
to, man's future, the great Yes to all things, become visible in the
imperium Romanum,
visible for all the senses, the grand style no longer mere art but become reality, truth,
life
. And not buried overnight by a natural catastrophe, not trampled down by Teutons and other buffaloes, but ruined by cunning, stealthy, invisible, anemic vampires. Not vanquished—merely drained. Hidden vengefulness, petty envy become master. Everything miserable that suffers from itself, that is afflicted with bad feelings, the whole ghetto-world of the soul
on top
all at once.

One need only read any Christian agitator, St. Augustine, for example, to comprehend, to
smell
, what an unclean lot had thus come to the top. One would deceive oneself utterly if one presupposed any lack of intelligence among the leaders of the Christian movement: oh, they are clever, clever to the point of holiness, these good church fathers! What they lack is something quite different. Nature has neglected them—she forgot to give them a modest dowry of respectable, of decent, of
clean
instincts. Among ourselves, they are not even men. Islam is a thousand times right in despising Christianity: Islam presupposes
men
.

 

60

Christianity has cheated us out of the harvest of ancient culture; later it cheated us again, out of the harvest of the culture of
Islam
. The wonderful world of the Moorish culture of Spain, really more closely related to
us
, more congenial to our senses and tastes than Rome and Greece, was
trampled down
(I do not say by what kind of feet). Why? Because it owed its origin to noble, to
male
instincts, because it said Yes to life even with the rare and refined luxuries of Moorish life.

Later the crusaders fought something before which they might more properly have prostrated themselves in the dust—a culture compared to which even our nineteenth century might well feel very poor, very ‟late.” To be sure, they wanted loot; the Orient was rich. One should not be so prejudiced. Crusades—higher piracy, nothing else! The German nobility, Viking nobility at bottom, was in its proper element here: the church knew only too well what it takes to
get
the German nobility. The German nobility, always the “Swiss Guards” of the church, always in the service of all the bad instincts of the church—but
well paid
. That the church should have used German swords, German blood and courage, to wage its war unto death against everything noble on earth! There are many painful questions at this point. The German nobility is almost
missing
in the history of higher culture: one guesses the reason—Christianity, alcohol, the two
great
means of corruption.

Really there should not be any choice between Islam and Christianity, any more than between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is given; nobody is free to make any further choice. Either one is a chandala, or one
is not
. “War to the knife against Rome! Peace and friendship with Islam”—thus felt, thus
acted,
that great free spirit, the genius among German emperors, Frederick II. How? Must a German first be a genius, a free spirit, to have
decent
feelings? I do not understand how a German could ever have
Christian
feelings.

 

61

Here it becomes necessary to touch on a memory which is even a hundred times more painful for Germans. The Germans have cheated Europe out of the last great cultural harvest which Europe could still have brought home—that of the
Renaissance
. Does one understand at last, does one
want
to understand, what the Renaissance was? The
revaluation of Christian values
, the attempt, undertaken with every means, with every instinct, with all genius, to bring the
counter
values, the
noble
values to victory.

So far there has been only this one great war, so far there has been no more decisive question than that of the Renaissance—
my
question is its question—nor has there ever been a more fundamental, a straighter form of
attack
in which the whole front was led more strictly against the center. Attacking in the decisive place, in the very seat of Christianity, placing the
noble
values on the throne
here
, I mean, bringing them right into the instincts, into the lowest needs and desires of those who sat there!

I envisage a
possibility
of a perfectly supraterrestrial magic and fascination of color: it seems to me that it glistens in all the tremors of subtle beauty, that an art is at work in it, so divine, so devilishly divine that one searches millennia in vain for a second such possibility; I envisage a spectacle so ingenious, so wonderfully paradoxical at the same time, that all the deities on Olympus would have had occasion for immortal laughter:
Cesare Borgia as pope
. Am I understood? Well then, that would have been the victory which alone I crave today: with that, Christianity would have been
abolished
.